DC Housing Prices drop beginning

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This point that people loosing theirs jobs are primarily waiters and bartenders, who are not relevant to the housing market for SFH strikes me as a very sheltered and naive view. What about the people who own the bars and restaurants where the laid off waiters and bartenders used to work? What about professionals who work in the travel and hospitality industries, for example? There are so many people who are impacted by the current crisis.

Just be patient; the drop is coming. We are already seeing it in Arlington as the Amazon binge cools off. Houses in Pentagon City and Del Ray are selling for 10% less than they would have otherwise - check out sale prices in the last week in both neighborhoods compared to 6 weeks ago.

We are in a situation where nationally we will likely have unemployment above 15% for the next 18 months and will potentially see a global depression into the late 2020s. I would not touch the DC housing market until at least this October. Having said that, I do not think we will see a genuine crash in real estate prices in this area given increased government spending on contractors, but I do believe we will see at least a 15% drop by next year.

Can you provide links to support your claims about Del Ray and Pentagon City? All I see is nothing available in either location for less than $1.1M, and low inventory even at that price point. A townhouse in Warwick village came on the market last Friday at $650K and was under contract on Saturday.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This point that people loosing theirs jobs are primarily waiters and bartenders, who are not relevant to the housing market for SFH strikes me as a very sheltered and naive view. What about the people who own the bars and restaurants where the laid off waiters and bartenders used to work? What about professionals who work in the travel and hospitality industries, for example? There are so many people who are impacted by the current crisis.

It's helpful to remember that people speak generally and aren't saying no one is immune. I do agree that broadly speaking, the professional and upper middle classes will weather this shutdown/recession pretty well and recover quickly. It doesn't meal there will be no causalities or job losses (Boeing layoffs for example, or restaurant owners going bankrupt), but as a whole the demographics won't be so badly hit. Meanwhile, the service workers will likely take a huge hit through closing of stores and restaurants reduced demand as people become more frugal. A shift to mass teleworking can see office cleaners and low level office service workers lose jobs in large numbers. But it doesn't mean all service workers will lose jobs either.

The hot areas of DC were seeing multiple bids for every house. Let's assume the typical house had 4 interested buyers. It may now be 3 interested buyers instead of 4. Still a lot of interest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This point that people loosing theirs jobs are primarily waiters and bartenders, who are not relevant to the housing market for SFH strikes me as a very sheltered and naive view. What about the people who own the bars and restaurants where the laid off waiters and bartenders used to work? What about professionals who work in the travel and hospitality industries, for example? There are so many people who are impacted by the current crisis.

Just be patient; the drop is coming. We are already seeing it in Arlington as the Amazon binge cools off. Houses in Pentagon City and Del Ray are selling for 10% less than they would have otherwise - check out sale prices in the last week in both neighborhoods compared to 6 weeks ago.

We are in a situation where nationally we will likely have unemployment above 15% for the next 18 months and will potentially see a global depression into the late 2020s. I would not touch the DC housing market until at least this October. Having said that, I do not think we will see a genuine crash in real estate prices in this area given increased government spending on contractors, but I do believe we will see at least a 15% drop by next year.

Links please.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This point that people loosing theirs jobs are primarily waiters and bartenders, who are not relevant to the housing market for SFH strikes me as a very sheltered and naive view. What about the people who own the bars and restaurants where the laid off waiters and bartenders used to work? What about professionals who work in the travel and hospitality industries, for example? There are so many people who are impacted by the current crisis.

Just be patient; the drop is coming. We are already seeing it in Arlington as the Amazon binge cools off. Houses in Pentagon City and Del Ray are selling for 10% less than they would have otherwise - check out sale prices in the last week in both neighborhoods compared to 6 weeks ago.

We are in a situation where nationally we will likely have unemployment above 15% for the next 18 months and will potentially see a global depression into the late 2020s. I would not touch the DC housing market until at least this October. Having said that, I do not think we will see a genuine crash in real estate prices in this area given increased government spending on contractors, but I do believe we will see at least a 15% drop by next year.

Links please.

Yeah I'm curious too. We bought our house in the beginning of April in North Ridge, Alexandria (we were also looking at Del Ray). Our price point was $850K max, 3br/2ba minimum 1,500 sq ft. Everything in that price point in Del Ray flew off the market and ended up going above $850k and now there's not really anything. We feel glad that we got our house which we think was a pretty good deal in part because less people were looking and we were actually able to do an inspection and financing contingency. But we still paid a touch over full list because there were two offers. The market in our price range subsequently has been super dry with only low quality, poorly-priced houses that have been on the market for a long time (like pre-Corona). If anything I'm seeing the higher priced homes sitting, but we could've never bought those anyways. In our price range things still seem to be moving quickly.

Now, I fully expect housing prices to go down. But I think the market is going to be super dry. A lot of people, at least in our price range, have mortgages that will qualify for forbearance. Only people very desperate to sell will list. And it'll be harder to find qualified buyers because of how stringent lending standards are becoming. It's a good question how much prices will fall. 10%? Maybe. 20%? 30%? worse? Honestly, if it gets that bad around here, well then things will be really really bad all around and a housing crash will be the least of my worries. I'm just glad we'll have our home to retreat to in that situation. It's our forever home and basically both of us would have to lose our relatively secure jobs with no employment for a couple of years before we'd not be able to pay. And again, if that happens to us given how stable our jobs are, well, the world is basically falling apart. Can't predict or plan for that scenario. Everything right now is changing so quickly that it makes pretty much no sense to predict how it'll look 2 weeks out let alone months from now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In a country where 155,000,000 people are employed, 25,000 people losing their jobs is not even a ripple.

It’s not just Boeing.
https://adpemploymentreport.com/2020/April/NER/NER-April-2020.aspx

[Anonymous]

Just be patient; the drop is coming. We are already seeing it in Arlington as the Amazon binge cools off. Houses in Pentagon City and Del Ray are selling for 10% less than they would have otherwise - check out sale prices in the last week in both neighborhoods compared to 6 weeks ago.

I think you might be correct for certain sub-markets within Arlington, like the >$1.2 sub-market. However, I don't think this is true in general for ALL houses. For example, I can tell you which sub-market certainly has NOT cooled off: single family homes with 3BR+, 1.5BA+, 1750 sq ft+, 6500 sq ft lots+ under $1 million. Any house near DC that is in decent condition and doesn't have obvious issues (next to a cemetery) gets taken off the market within 5 days.

[Anonymous]

There is very little inventory. Anything that's a SFH under $1m and inside the Beltway is under contract within days. I know multiple sets of DINKs and high income singles who are looking and just can't find anything decent. Even the crap is selling fast. Or, if the SFH is nice, there's six offers.

Condos are a different story. I know multiple people trying to selling their condos in DC and are seeing no interest. These same people wanted to take their equity and roll it into a SFH (for which there is no inventory!)

The system has come to a screeching halt. Bad for condo owners, bad for agents, bad for people who want to upgrade. Great for SFH owners who want to sell and then are willing to downsize or leave DC completely.

[Anonymous]

The PP above shouting that Del Ray is dropping (no links btw) is also forgetting that the summer market exists. Traditionally its the slowest of all the seasons since people don't buy in the summer. I think we'll find this summer is actually a substantially higher sales market.

[Anonymous]

What? Homes in our neighborhood in Vienna have sold record fast and no price drops!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What? Homes in our neighborhood in Vienna have sold record fast and no price drops!

I am in MoCo, which DCUM assures me on a daily basis is dying, and it's been the same here (Rockville/Potomac area, houses in the 600s-800s range). My neighbors listed and didn't even get to have their open house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is very little inventory. Anything that's a SFH under $1m and inside the Beltway is under contract within days. I know multiple sets of DINKs and high income singles who are looking and just can't find anything decent. Even the crap is selling fast. Or, if the SFH is nice, there's six offers.

Condos are a different story. I know multiple people trying to selling their condos in DC and are seeing no interest. These same people wanted to take their equity and roll it into a SFH (for which there is no inventory!)

The system has come to a screeching halt. Bad for condo owners, bad for agents, bad for people who want to upgrade. Great for SFH owners who want to sell and then are willing to downsize or leave DC completely.

Its very different in my neighborhood. Maybe it depends on what you moved into the community for. The main draw EOTP is amenities. The main draw WOTP is schools.

In fact, I'm seeing very expensive condos that were lingering on the market now selling. Here's a $1.15M 2 bedroom in Dupont Circle that didn't sell in 2019, now getting snatched off the market in 2020.

https://www.redfin.com/DC/Washington/1624-18th-St-NW-20009/unit-C/home/10185195

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is very little inventory. Anything that's a SFH under $1m and inside the Beltway is under contract within days. I know multiple sets of DINKs and high income singles who are looking and just can't find anything decent. Even the crap is selling fast. Or, if the SFH is nice, there's six offers.

Condos are a different story. I know multiple people trying to selling their condos in DC and are seeing no interest. These same people wanted to take their equity and roll it into a SFH (for which there is no inventory!)

The system has come to a screeching halt. Bad for condo owners, bad for agents, bad for people who want to upgrade. Great for SFH owners who want to sell and then are willing to downsize or leave DC completely.

Yeah I feel for condo owners trying to sell. Especially with all the social distancing stuff. It’s gonna be a hard sell to live in a place where you have to share an entrance door with everyone.

[Anonymous]

This agent tends to price high all the time and then end up dropping the price several times. Not good at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There is very little inventory. Anything that's a SFH under $1m and inside the Beltway is under contract within days. I know multiple sets of DINKs and high income singles who are looking and just can't find anything decent. Even the crap is selling fast. Or, if the SFH is nice, there's six offers.

Condos are a different story. I know multiple people trying to selling their condos in DC and are seeing no interest. These same people wanted to take their equity and roll it into a SFH (for which there is no inventory!)

The system has come to a screeching halt. Bad for condo owners, bad for agents, bad for people who want to upgrade. Great for SFH owners who want to sell and then are willing to downsize or leave DC completely.

I'd imagine if anything is a severe drop, it is condos. Who wants to spend the next two years paying for useless amenities and following social distance and PPE rules?

But I do think it will depend on the type of condo. If it's like a 2 over 2 with separate entrance, maybe no problem. If it's an apartment like building, I think there could be a bloodbath. Nobody wants to live like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A house in my hot PG county neighborhood went under contract in one weekend.

There’s a hot market in PG county? That’s a new one.

I would say it is as someone who is looking in the 20720 zip code and nearby neighborhoods.